


a fist among the hands

by reptilianraven



Category: Let's Play Cyberpunk Red - Polygon (Web Series)
Genre: Anger, Blood and Injury, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26748622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reptilianraven/pseuds/reptilianraven
Summary: He remembers it like this: Burger’s mind goes far away and a small stray dog inside of his chest howls itself awake and surges forward the same time Burger’s fist hits the wall. Surges again and again and again until Burger can feel the blood dripping off of the dog’s molars, until Burger can feel the blood dripping off of his knuckles. He remembers it like this: a snarl, then impact. Wounds were a good enough epitaph for the day.-Burger feels everything so deeply. Anger is not an exception.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	a fist among the hands

**Author's Note:**

> once again i am projecting onto fictional characters
> 
> i wrote this in like in an hour and it is not proofread. my typos are between me and god

i. 

Burger was always told that he wears his heart on his sleeve. The first time he remembered hearing the words they were honey sweet and syrupy from Ma as she bounced him on her hip. She made it a little song to calm him down when he’d cry. _Sweet boy, with feelings so bright. Sweet boy, let’s cry those tears out of sight._ He didn’t mind that everybody called him sensitive. Back in those days—under the sun drenched fields and over the kind and gentle dirt—it was just a fact of life. The sky is blue, Ma and Pa love him very much, and Burger feels every feeling so intensely that he wonders how he doesn’t bleed his feelings out when he skins his knee on the ground. Happiness bubbles up in him like an opened bottle of cold soda, sadness simmers and thickens in his veins like a pot of medicine over the stove, feelings take up space in his mind, his soul, his body. Burger grew up getting told he wears his heart on his sleeve. Later, he’ll learn that he wears his anger in his fist.

ii. 

It’s hard to remember that day in scenes that make sense. If Burger’s life were a movie, maybe he could watch the day in scenes. Scene one, being out in the fields and watching the acricorp bigwigs drive out of the farming commune with their fancy schmancy cars. Scene two, walking back to his home and seeing the rest of the commune with sorrow in their eyes, hopelessness drowning them from inside out. Scene three, walking through the front door of his home and seeing Ma smile at him sadly and shake her head while Pa sat at the dinner table with his head in his hands. Scene four, putting all the details together, the cars driving away, the resignation hanging heavy in the air, the contract on the dinner table. Scene five, the break. But Burger’s life isn’t a movie, so that’s not how he remembers it all. He remembers it like this: Burger’s mind goes far away and a small stray dog inside of his chest howls itself awake and surges forward the same time Burger’s fist hits the wall. Surges again and again and again until Burger can feel the blood dripping off of the dog’s molars, until Burger can feel the blood dripping off of his knuckles. He remembers it like this: a snarl, then impact. Wounds were a good enough epitaph for the day.

iii. 

It makes sense, that his anger is like this, but Burger never liked it. It scares him. This thing with teeth that prowls back and forth, back and forth, back and forth within his ribcage. This isn't a stallion that needs breaking, this is something ugly, rotting at the edges, slobbering vitriol and acrimony. An animal past the point of taming, Burger’s anger is an open maw that sleeps lightly and he takes care not to wake it, until, of course, other people do it for him. Until he grows up and the world that is a knife’s edge of cruelty presses against his jugular and dares him to make a move. Until he slowly learns that being something of a weapon is useful in this city dripping with night at every nook and cranny. Burger grew up with everybody telling him his smile was wonderful, but eventually, Burger learns how to bare his teeth. Whoever is pushing him takes one step back, and that step is all he needs to break them.

iv. 

Because that’s what this feeling loves to do; break things. He thinks about it a lot, especially after he meets Dasha and Vang0. It’s like the facts of life all over again; the sky is blue, Dasha and Vang0 love him, and inside of Burger, there’s something terrible and monstrous and one day it will wake up in front of their eyes and the dog will rip everything apart. Some nights, he lies awake in his bed opening his hand and closing it, feeling his muscles contract and release in some sort of exercise, some sort of preparation to maybe hold the hound back on the day it growls awake. But he knows he feels too intensely for him to be able to control it. It’ll bubble up, it’ll simmer and thicken, it will come dripping out of him in horrific globs of violence because his anger is an unsure creature. It is so angry it does not know if anything is real. Nothing catches attention to the existence of a thing than the sound of that thing smashing against the floor. By the time Burger realizes this is, in fact, real, it’s too late. Wounds can’t be undone. Epitaphs can’t be unetched. 

v. 

It’s hard to remember that day in scenes that make sense. If Burger’s life were a movie, he wouldn’t be able to watch it, too scared of how the movie would end. Scene one, guns pointed at Dasha and Vang0. Scene two, slow motion of the man’s finger squeezing the trigger. Scene three, well, this one’s too graphic for any movie, so we’ll skip that one. Scene four and Burger is covered in blood that isn’t his, a body underneath him beaten to a pulp. Burger remembers it like this: the dog snarls awake, froths at the mouth, and protects his friends. He can’t watch, but he doesn’t have to, because two pairs of gentle hands pull him away from the body with kindness Burger doesn’t think he deserves. On his sleeve is his heart, in his fist is his anger. Dasha and Vang0 hold both those things. Dasha and Vang0 wait until his fingers open into a palm. It’ll curl up into a fist again, the dog will surge forward, ugly and jagged, but for now. For now he let’s them hold his hand. He lets them pull him away from the blood. He lets them take him, all of him, the soft parts and the sharp parts, away to somewhere gentler where the dog can sleep and dream of the things dogs dream about.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from the song Wrecking Ball by Mother Mother
> 
> im [actualbird](http://actualbird.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


End file.
